Here’s What 7 Americans Think of Trump’s First 100 Days

As mayor of the small border town of Roma, Jaime Escobar Jr. was accustomed to assessing whether strategies were working. At this point, Mr. Escobar remained mostly optimistic, but he was still wary.

“I’m not saying I’m 100 percent happy with everything, but for the most part, I feel that Trump is tackling the issues that the American voters thought were important,” he said, referring to immigration and the economy. “I don’t regret voting for him.”

He identified as a Democrat until the migrant crisis and, after years of what he described as chaos at the border, he voted for Mr. Trump, a Republican. Mr. Escobar appreciated that several early executive orders effectively barred migrants from entering the nation and applying for asylum. He said he felt that the actions stood in sharp contrast to how President Joseph R. Biden Jr. often spoke about addressing immigration reform through a bipartisan congressional effort.

The evolution of Mr. Trump’s tariff policies became a cause for concern for Mr. Escobar, even beyond stock market turmoil and fears of inflation. But the mayor said he recently noticed lower prices at local grocery stores and gas pumps. Mr. Escobar — who expanded from relying on CNN for national news to including The Times, Fox News and MSNBC — said he remained confident that Mr. Trump had a long-term economic plan.

“I think there’s a strategy that Trump and his administration is trying to put into place,” Mr. Escobar added.

The biggest downside in his view? That the nation remained so divided.

“I just don’t like so much negativity,” he said. “We got to be able to listen to one another.”

— Edgar Sandoval

‘He’s taking it a bit too far.’

Dave Abdallah, 59, from Dearborn Heights, Mich.

Dave Abdallah always admired Mr. Trump’s tendency to say what was on his mind.

But to Mr. Adballah, a real estate agent, there was a line that could be crossed — one Mr. Trump zoomed past too often.

“He’s taking it a bit too far,” Mr. Adballah said.

Change can be good, he added — if implemented thoughtfully. But that was not what he felt he had seen from Mr. Trump.

“It’s just been way too much action for 80, 90, 100 days,” said Mr. Abdallah, who read mostly local newspapers and watched a lot of TV and online news.

Mr. Abdallah, who lives in a region that is dominated by the automobile industry and susceptible to changes in global trade, said the president’s behavior toward China, Canada and Mexico on trade had not sat well with him. “No matter what, you got to play nice,” he said. “It’s not good to have neighbors that you’re fighting with all the time.”

Between Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris, Mr. Abdallah said he had leaned toward Mr. Trump but had voted for the third-party candidate Jill Stein in protest. Unhappy with the Biden administration’s handling of the war between Israel and Hamas, Mr. Abdallah also believed that Mr. Trump would not be any better and now felt that his instincts have been borne out. In addition, aggression between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, Mr. Abdallah’s home country, had hardly abated.

He said that if he had to vote for president today, nothing would change.

— Kurt Streeter

‘I have been trying to turn my thoughts in a positive direction, hoping that one day he’ll turn the page.’

Veronica McCloud, 63, from Charleston, S.C.

Veronica McCloud, a retired teacher, watched the first 100 days with disappointment and exasperation — and the slightest bit of hope.

Though she voted for Kamala Harris, Ms. McCloud said she had since tried to throw her support behind Mr. Trump. She admits she took a news break after the election, but she later resumed watching ABC’s “World News Tonight.” Occasionally she watches Fox News to see how an event is characterized.

She had hoped Mr. Trump would leave his divisive language and style behind. Instead, she said, he incited fear and confusion while introducing policies she felt undermined working people.

Most troubling, Ms. McCloud said, was his defiance of court orders and a trade war threatening to crush the economy.

His strategy of making America great again, she said, had felt more like “bullying.”

The mass firings of federal workers and the deportation of some undocumented immigrants reinforced her belief that she had made the right call with her vote, Ms. McCloud added.

Still, she remained hopeful Mr. Trump might adopt a more measured style.

“I have been trying to turn my thoughts in a positive direction,” Ms. McCloud said, “hoping that one day he’ll turn the page and realize that he’s just not just feeding his base, his MAGA supporters, but that he’s everybody’s president.”

— Audra D. S. Burch

Darlene Alfieri, a registered Democrat and owner of a flower shop, felt things had gotten so off track that it was worth the risk of voting for Mr. Trump — he had promised a major break with the status quo, after all.

“I think it’s kind of a roller coaster,” she said. Tariffs bumped up her operating costs, and she knew people affected by cuts to the federal government. The problems Mr. Trump pledged to fix were not created in a matter of weeks, she said, and they would not be fixed that quickly.

“I feel like they’re at least taking a different approach,” she said, adding, “I’m just not sure it’ll work.”

She remains frustrated over a lack of details: How long should people expect higher prices from tariffs? How do people know who won a trade war? Will the prices then go back down?

Ms. Alfieri watched local and national network news, but she said she did not believe she was always hearing the full story. She turned to people in her community who had backgrounds, like military service, that could help her better understand things. Making firm conclusions without more reliable information was hard, she said, adding that she was hoping for the best.

“We can choose to take this ride and make the best of it, or we can choose to keep fighting it,” she said. “I don’t think fighting it is getting us anywhere.”

— Campbell Robertson

‘You don’t want the plane to go down because you don’t like the pilot.’

Hamid Chaudhry, 53, from Reading, Pa.

Hamid Chaudhry has stayed calm. He kept up with the national news — The Times, Fox News and CNN, he said — but also studied his local community to gauge whether alarm was warranted.

“When I see the national news, it seems like it’s all doom and gloom for immigrants,” he said. But Mr. Chaudhry said he recently checked in with his local district attorney, who said that, in Pennsylvania at least, he was not aware of anyone being detained and deported who did not have a criminal conviction, regardless of citizenship status. Mr. Chaudhry, who immigrated from Pakistan decades ago and became a U.S. citizen, said he felt reassured.

At the food market he runs and in his local community he said he had not seen what he felt were signs of recession — just a normalization of spending habits after a little optimism after the election.

America was bigger than one politician, Mr. Chaudhry said. He voted for Mr. Trump, believing some gambles were necessary to change the status quo. But Mr. Chaudhry liked when the courts stepped in, too; he saw such intervention as a sign that the “system seems to be working.”

He remained hopeful that tax-and-spending cuts would spur more entrepreneurs, even as he was also a bit nervous that Mr. Trump might go overboard.

“I’m going to support him because he’s the pilot of the plane,” he said. “You don’t want the plane to go down because you don’t like the pilot.”

— Campbell Robertson

‘I still have that feeling of wait and see.’

Perry Hunter, 55, from Sellersburg, Ind.

Perry Hunter felt irked that some Americans had expected Mr. Trump to solve the country’s problems in the first 100 days. Mr. Hunter, a high school teacher, was willing to wait much longer — two years or more — and thought other Americans should be just as patient.

“I still have that feeling of wait and see,” he said, adding that he remained comfortable with his vote for Mr. Trump. “We live in a microwave society where we think that everything good should happen overnight.”

Mr. Hunter said he goes out of his way to get information about Mr. Trump from a variety of sources, including CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, and liberal and conservative talk radio shows. He also catches news clips on YouTube and X.

He agreed with most of what Mr. Trump had done so far, including calling for barring transgender women from women’s sports. But he saw the pitfalls of a president trying to force an agenda without working with Congress.

Mr. Hunter wondered, What if these tactics set precedent for future administrations whose policies he did not agree with? He said he and others would not like that.

He said he was disturbed by the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a migrant man mistakenly deported to a Salvadoran prison, but said he was also reserving judgment until more information about Mr. Abrego Garcia’s background became public.

He also said he thought Mr. Trump was a narcissist, but added that the president showed some humility and flexibility recently by proposing tariff changes. That move was proof to Mr. Hunter, he said, that Mr. Trump wanted the best for the United States.

“I think his ego is so huge that he doesn’t want to be seen as someone who may put us in a Great Depression or tank the economy,” he said. “I think he doesn’t want to be seen as a failure.”

— Juliet Macur

‘My optimism and my hope are up.’

Tali Jackont, 57, from Los Angeles

Tali Jackont had reservations, but for now she was sticking with Mr. Trump.

“My optimism and my hope are up,” says Ms. Jackont, an educator and longtime Democrat who voted for Mr. Trump, believing he could bring prosperity and peace.

She was no fan of what she called the “childish side in his personality,” but she was willing to let time unfold.

Ms. Jackont, who was born and raised in Israel before immigrating to the United States decades ago, closely followed Israeli news sources and a range of American media, and she had clear expectations for the rest of Mr. Trump’s term. Mr. Trump needed to do what he campaigned on and “take care of the economy,” she said.

She liked that his administration was holding talks with Iran over nuclear activity, and she wanted Mr. Trump to keep fighting what she viewed as antisemitism on college campuses.

She had held out hope that Mr. Trump could put an end to war between Israel and Hamas and, most of all, help bring back the Israeli hostages.

Mr. Trump, she believed, had not been firm enough with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, emboldening him to break the cease-fire and losing the option to bring back hostages. “I’m very upset with that,” she said.

In January, Ms. Jackont had given Mr. Trump high marks. Hostages were starting to be released, a sign, she believed, that his style of diplomacy was working.

And now?

“It’s a low grade,” she said.

— Kurt Streeter

Video production by Nailah Morgan and Arijeta Lajka, who contributed reporting.